


Dreaming in the Dark

by WritLarge



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:41:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritLarge/pseuds/WritLarge
Summary: It started with an accident.





	Dreaming in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Frost-Guardian](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Frost-Guardian).



It started with an accident.

The Sandman checked in on him from time to time, tendrils reaching out to Pitch in cautious curiosity, golden dreams pushing their way through the darkness. Curving trails of dream sand snaked through his space making their presence known, ensuring that he was unable to forget the Guardians’ ever watchful eyes.

Pitch scowled. Would they never let him be?

The sand took its time. It never went so far as to make contact with him, however, instead lighting up shadowy corners and seeking out hidden nooks. Nosy.

Eventually, it retreated, taking its glow along with it, and for the first time Pitch noticed a few stray grains left behind. The tiny remnants lifeless on the ground. Once the bulk of the dream sand had left and his shadows had returned, Pitch ventured to examine them.

The sand didn’t react to his shadow or his touch. Cut off from the main body of sand, the grains seemed dormant. Pitch collected them carefully and waited. He may have been bereft of everything else, but Time he had in abundance, and he’d never suffered for a lack of patience.

The Sandman’s searching tendrils visited, again and again, each visit adding to his collection until he had a fine dusting of dream sand.

Pitch poked and prodded. It didn’t react, never spurred a sooner visit or regained its glow. Inert. Intrigued, he began to experiment further with the sand. As his stores grew, the sand kept its secrets, as inscrutable as its master. He did manage to discover how nigh on indestructible it was. If only he could control it himself. The things he could do!

It had to be possible. Dreams and nightmares were closely intertwined, nightmares merely being dreams steeped with fear. Surely if anyone could master it, it would be him?

Pitch redoubled his efforts. It wasn’t easy. So much of his own power had weakened and been stripped away. He waited until shortly after an intrusion to take his pool of dream sand into the blackest place he could find, where the echoes of old fears remained and Pitch felt their bolstering darkness. There he pressed his advantage, enduring until the glitter of the sand shifted and turned, corrupted. Now the grains reflected his power back to him. Coming awake together, this new nightmare sand shivered and connected to form one shimmering, living mass.

It was marvellous.

Delighted by his creation, Pitch patiently collected discarded grains of dream sand wherever he could, following the trails at night and staying hidden in the shadows. New additions were quickly corrupted and absorbed. It reacted to him immediately now, gracefully forming the shapes and strands he requested. Independently moving creations were another matter, however.

Determined to further master the sand, Pitch began observing the Sandman, daring as close as he might while still avoiding discovery. What was the secret to giving the sand more than mere direction? How could he give it purpose? Intent? Personality?

But no mimicry of the Sandman’s movements provided any result and only succeeded in making him feel foolish. In the end, he discarded the Sandman’s methods entirely. Nightmare sand was his creation and it would bend to his will, one way or another.

Through trial and error, Pitch determined a method to make images that could separate from the mass and keep their shape. Small, but stable. They had no complex higher thoughts, of course, but they could act and react in basic ways on their own. Attacking a target for example, which was primarily what he required.

Now he needed more sand. The source Pitch required was easily accessed if he was careful. The dreams themselves. When dream sand manifested above the heads of children, Pitch could corrupt the shape and take it under his own control, turning frolicking dreams into creatures of the night. It was perfect. And it gave him the answer to his power struggle with the Sandman.

Corrupting the Guardian of Dreams himself.

But why stop there? Yes, a plan began to grow in his mind. Why should he be reduced to this, forced into hiding, ignored and forgotten when he did emerge? No, the sand was only the beginning. It was the foundation upon which his plan would be built and when he was finished the Guardians could have their turn without Belief. All Pitch needed to do was to sow a little confusion, undermine their believers a little, and bait his trap.

And he’d make the Guardians watch as he corrupted the Sandman, taking him apart down to the last grain.

It was going to be fun.


End file.
